Why Good for Nothing is like Marmite

..either you get it or you don’t. Ok so the headline was to get your attention and now that I have it I thought I would say a little by way of explaining what GFN is all about and why you should jump at the chance of taking part.

I mean we did and were sold on the idea instantly. We can only speak from personal experience but we can imagine chapters being set up by people who have attended a hack or heard about it from someone who has. In other words “We got it”. The name and branding itself is nothing short of genius and it only takes a couple of minutes watching the videos and browsing the website before you are hooked. If you get it you will know whether this is the kind of project that gets your heart racing and creative juices flowing pretty much straight away. If you get it instantly then chances are you will sign up in a heartbeat and start telling anyone on your friend circle that will listen.

But it’s not always entirely clear to everyone what GFN isall about and how they fit in. So it may be you don’t get it straight away. A GFN chapter relies on a good mix of enthusiastic talented creative people who can bring skills like web design,writing, coding, marketing, videography, photography, tea making, listening,sketching, making , planning (the list is endless) to the table. However often when people first come across the GFN movement they perhaps think of it in terms of their current job and role within their current workplace, and then make a decision as to whether this is something that fits or not.

I believe that the true joy of being part of GFN is that you get to free yourself from the day to day routine of your work. Or you may even be between jobs looking for the next exciting role to come up. It may be that you have skills and interests that is more like a hobby for now and you could put these skills to great use by taking part in a hack. Perhaps you often wish you could take on more goodwill project in your work but budgets or time don’t allow for that flexibility? Someone from a different GFN chapter once described the Hack as a “massive house party without getting hammered but getting to put all your skills to amazing use”. It certainly turbocharged the causes we help but who knows, it might spark some awesome new ideas for you too.

The time commitment isn’t huge and it’s all done outside traditional work hours as such. A typical hack starts on a Friday evening with the main bulk of the work taking place all day Saturday. Its basically a one-off intense 24 hour period (don’t worry you get to go home and sleep off course) and you might not make it to all of the hacks but wherever you can and whatever you can do we want you to join us. We guarantee you come away buzzing with the feeling that you have just done the equivalent of over 6 months work in 12hours. Imagine that? We can’t think of a better way to spend parts of our weekend every once in a while.

So there you go, GFN shouldn’t feel like work as such we are not looking for you to represent your organisation or business necessarily (unless you are from the cause we are helping or one of our amazing supporters providing food and drinks for us) we want you to come along just as you. Bring all your individual skills (past and present) and all your passion and enthusiasm and be part of something spectacular. You get it right? I knew you would.